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Model daughters of the patriarchy movement, the Botkin girls express a hatred of feminism that is pure, and they hate it in a variety of flavors most feminists wouldn’t recognize as their cause. To the Botkins, all bad women–from the seductress hoping to “subdue masculinity” with her womanly wiles and charms to vain pageant queens to career women to even conservative Christian wives who aren’t fervent enough about spiritual war–are feministic, seeking to ‘weaken and dominate men.’

Reading Kathryn Joyce’s exhaustively researched and fascinating new book, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, sometimes feels like a science fiction experience. The Christian patriarchy movement is aimed at raising dutiful daughters and obedient wives who will populate the world with strong Christian stock. They make spreadsheets of their future spawn and, like big brother himself, try to manipulate women into feelings like there is profound power in relinquishing all autonomy, opinion, and agency. The most dearly held ideology of this small but growing group of Americans is not necessarily godliness, but severely traditional gender roles. As such, feminism is the enemy.
Joyce is a young feminist schooled in an old-school journalistic style: report, report, report. She enters this world with absolute dedication to getting as much material as possible. She’s not an inflamer or a polemicist, but a dispassionate observer, an information-gatherer, a witness. As such, if you’re looking for some snark (ala Jessica V.) or some poetry then you’ll be disappointed. Joyce is writing a book that is meant to wow you with its comprehensive breadth and depth, not its rhetorical flourishes or narrative personality. It’s quite refreshing actually, if not sometimes a bit overwhelming.
What’s most exciting to me is that Joyce is breaking truly new ground here. Much has been written about evangelic Christianity or cultish religious subcultures. It’s a fascinating and important subject. But Joyce has entered a different sort of landscape, one that is uncharted and completely critical to our understanding of how far we’ve come, and how far we’ve got to go if we are going to bring ALL women (and men) along. She’s uncovered a horrifying and very real trend in contemporary America. Next time someone asks you, “Is feminism really so necessary anymore?” just hand them Joyce’s book and say “Read up, my friend.”
Check out this riveting NPR story on the subject as well.Thanks to Laura for the heads up.

After 200 years of lying about it the Mormon Church is finally admitting that its founder Joseph Smith had forty wives. If the Church can change its official line on the man they consider to be their prophet, they can surely update their sexist policy barring women from becoming priests.

To clarify, the news isn’t that Smith was polygamous, but rather that the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or LDS, officially admitted to Smith’s so called “plural marriage” in an essay it released on its website:

In biblical times, the Lord commanded some of His people to practice plural marriage—the marriage of one man and more than one ...

After 200 years of lying about it the Mormon Church is finally admitting that its founder Joseph Smith had forty wives. If the Church can change its official line on the man they consider to be ...

Megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll, who was once a rock star in the evangelical world, has recently fallen from grace under accusations of plagiarism, abuse of power, and “spiritual bullying” with his ideological machismo. Much of the criticism stems from his anonymous rantings on a church message board in 2001 decrying how America has become a “pussified nation.”

The first thing to know about your penis is, that despite the way it may see, it is not your penis. Ultimately, God created you and it is his penis. You are simply borrowing it for a while.

While His penis is on loan you must admit that it is sort of ...

Megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll, who was once a rock star in the evangelical world, has recently fallen from grace under accusations of plagiarism, abuse of power, and “spiritual bullying” with his ideological machismo. Much of the criticism stems ...

Last Friday marked the 9th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the natural disaster that killed almost 2,000 people and displaced 400,000 people, most of them low-income African-Americans and people of color. This tragedy left a hole in the city of New Orleans and exposed the legacy of our country’s at times sickening racism, hurting diverse and rich communities that we rarely hear about in mainstream media.

One of those was the Voodoo or Vodou community. Before Hurricane Katrina hit, there were about 2,500 practitioners in New Orleans. Today, there are closer to 350.

In Newsweek, Stacey Anderson writes about the history of the smaller — but thriving — community of Voodoo practitioners today.

Last Friday marked the 9th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the natural disaster that killed almost 2,000 people and displaced 400,000 people, most of them low-income African-Americans and people of color. This tragedy left a hole in the ...